My mom (who is not a gardener) planted the original seeds of my love of gardening when she had us plant marigold seeds when I was about 5. We also visited great gardens in the Cleveland area where I grew up, like the Holden Arboretum and the Lake View Cemetery. In high school and college I planted tomato plants and redesigned my folks' foundation plantings. I also got involved in organic veggie gardening while in college through a cooperative garden. I now do mixed beds of shrubs, bulbs, and perennials as well as a relatively large veggie garden. I've also done a fair amount of trying to improve our woodland areas by removing invasives, planting natives and adding occasional non-natives like rhododendrons that fit in well.

As with many people, it started for me in childhood due to familyÂmy mother and grandfather, in my case. Then in my adolescence and adulthood, it continued to develop through experience, observation, reading, meeting and talking with dozens of fellow gardeners, and lots and lots of inspiration from my own head and heart. And I'm continuing to learn more and more, and fall more deeply in love with horticulture. Overall, a scenario that's probably pretty typical of a lot of the folks on here.

How about you, whaas?

Shortly after I moved into my first house, my dad brought over a flat of annual begonias. I had no interest whatsoever in gardening, but hey, they were free, so I planted them - and they grew....and here I am 15 years later...

I was living in Sarasota, Florida back in 1996 and my Mom and Dad gave me lots of their potted plants (they were moving back up north and couldn't take them all with them), which I proudly kept alive and well for quite a time. I was hooked after that! But, really my obsession with gardening didn't really get going until my DH and I moved into our first home here in Ohio (we had lived in apartments before then). My own yard! Yippee! I promptly started gathering all kinds of plants, many of which died because I didn't know what the heck I was doing!
My first attempt was with a lilac bush, which I totally planted in the wrong place, and killed it promptly with kindness lol.

Seems like this is handed down from Mom and Dad fairly often. :)

My mom has been a gardener as long as I can remember. When I lived at home I had zero zip interest in gardening. Then I got married and we moved into our first home, and I realized it didn't really feel like "home" to me unless there were gardens. :)

We moved into our second house a couple of years ago, and oh, I could not STAND driving home to a house with a bunch of crappy overgrown foundation shrubs. Had them all ripped out and started over. It was only then that it started to feel like "my" home.

we always bought mom easter flowers...

then came a rose bush for her ...

then some free tulips from a cereal box..

then a plum tree ...

then insanity ... lol .. when i found out i was a collector .... used to tell peeps .. better than wasting time sitting in a bar wasting money on booze ....

gardening is my aerobics and my therapy ... i mean really .. get really p.o.'d at the boss .. go dig big hole.. may as well stick something in it.. once the hole is done.. and the irritation gone ...

ken

Great stories so far...I was trying to figure out how people get started and how long the addiction continues. Maybe its more why we continue, Ken seems to have eluded to that point.

I'm still fairly new at the game. I bought my first house 4 years ago that had limited plantings. I wanted to spruce it up a bit and thats what I did. I then realized I needed more land...the 1/8 acre wasn't cutting it.

3 years ago I bought just under a 1/2 acre...same deal had a budget and put in some plantings...but then I realized I had alot more space to work with so I kept building and building more planting beds. I don't know what it was but I was starting to spend money on plants and not clothes or other indulgent items.

Once I visited the Chicago Botanic Gardens, it was almost like I was a kid in a candy store...I saw the light and started adding more "uncommon" items to my landscape...at least for my area.

I have a feeling this addiction will continue and although I have learned so much in the past few years, I hope to continue learning from the folks here as many of you have gardens to envy.

I wouldn't call my mother a great gardener but when I was about 8 or so she had our house landscaped with some of her favorite plants and that helped get me into gardening. Roses, mock orange, a weeping cherry tree, plus there were mountain pinks and muscari growing on the little hill separating our backyard from the neighbors. She stopped and knocked on the door of a strangers house to ask what the big purple flowered vine was in their front yard and that was my introduction to clematis.

In grade s.chool we did a project where you plant a corn seed in a glass jar so you can watch as it germinates and that got me hooked on the joys of propagation.

As a teen I planted a few gardens of my own but I really got into it when I was about 20. Then at 30 I decided to go back to s.chool and become a horticulturist. Which I am now as soon as I can find a job. :)

My parents gardened, my grandparents gardened and my Aunt Miriam did too. None were obsessed like I am but they all gardened. All flowers more than edibles though one set of grandparents moved to Arizona and grew citrus. Fresh lemonaide slushies YUM.

I've always loved plants and animals. I do not remember the very beginning.

Took horticulture in high school junior and senior year, worked at a garden center and then was a florist for over twenty years. This is the first time in my life I have not worked in horticulture. (I'm a wholesale sales rep of giftware)

My dad grew up farming, became an engineer. When we relocated to the south I was very young, but the red clay and total shade in our yard thwarted all his gardening efforts and he gave up (except for azaleas, which grow in the south in just about anything). I never cared one stitch for doing any gardening or planting AT ALL until I was in my 30's. But, as I was grew I always loved gardens. There was a large garden complex near our house with reproduction grecian statues and I really loved riding my bike there when I was a child. They charged admission, but it was worth it. That never turned into anything I loved to do until a couple of years ago when it finally became a possibility for me. Now I am totally enthralled. Last spring I had my kids outside and we watched how all the trees/shrubs/plants leafed out. Did you know that honeysuckle leafs out from the middle of the stem and not the end, like most plants? They drew pictures of plants budding out for 4 weeks to watch how it changes and grows. Amazing! I'm completely stunned by the enormous magic in it all. I'm amazed when I see irises and lilies popping through, and they're very different from red peony buds, which are very different from other perennials. This year I discovered what tall phlox new growth looks like. Would it look like little seedlings when it first sprouts from the base, barely even reaching the top of the soil? It doesn't! I love watching the true leaves appear on my seedlings. All the kids have to watch how similar the first leaf pair is on all plants, and then note how different the second leaf pair is, and how that is the real leaf shape for the plant. They think I'm crazy, Sometimes they ask me if I wouldn't mind not talking about it so much. But, I'm truly amazed. And to think all these years I missed it--I didn't even like it, in fact!

Since I don't have a past gardening, all I have to show for myself is a future. I am ALL OVER that future!

At about four or five, I started "helping" the little old lady next door, who had the classic English garden, blowsy and packed with interest. . .she patiently taught me SO much basic knowledge - which I then took back to my Dad next door, to help him grow HIS garden. . .I'm so ancient, I must confess that first home garden was a Victory Garden, no less. Also, growing up in a 15-acre woods, complete with a brook and scads of wildflowers, all of which my Dad explained to me in elaborate detail, didn't hurt.

All through the years in New York. I had rooftop gardens, backyard gardens,
fire escape gardens, co-op gardens on the street (which I'm still contracted to care for, 19 years later!). . .now that I have a little house and land here in NJ,
I've spent some of the best time of my life creating my own little oasis. Yeah,
gardening rules my life. . .

Carl

It all started so innocently.....a few veges for my husband cuz he was having allergy problems that may have been caused by 'crap' in his environment.
Well.....19 years later the vege garden still grows well, but the expansion into all grass growing areas has happened. I have over 100 varieties of lilies alone, more perennials and shrubs than that and now search for the unusual only.
I drool at the thought of a 5 acre property that we will inherit in future years....only problem is I will have to share the space with my husbands affliction.....cars!!!!!
Flora

Carl, I love your story. :) There was a little boy who lived next door to me at our other house who used to come over and "help" me garden, and then a few years later a little girl moved in there of about the same age. I don't have any kids of my own, so it was quite a fun novelty for me to have a child around and get to experience the garden through their eyes. I was truly amazed at their attention span and willingness to learn.

I remember the little girl coming over one day and helping me. We were digging up violets (ugh) out of a stand of phlox. She helped me all morning, and at lunch I told her I was going in to take a break and get something to eat. Well, she gave me about half an hour, and I heard a knock at my door. I opened it and she said, "Are you ready to get back to work?" :D Adorable! I will never forget that.

Your story made me smile and hope that maybe, just maybe, I inspired a love of plants in those two children.

I too come from a long line of gardeners. I can still see my great grandmother's iris clear as day in my mind. My grandmother though in a nursing home now still has lots of plant in her room. My father who always had large veggie gardens still has a smaller but edible landscape at his home in FL. The best memories of my mother(long dead now) were gardening with her.

Carl,
When I was a kid,I lived a couple doors down from a gardener who was very old at the time, Mr. Freddie. I know he was born in the 1800's and had been in WW1. His claim to fame was he was on 'What's My Line?' He was a sculpter of odd things. I still remember his Buddha made of cherry pits, lol. Anyway, he loved to garden and was good enough to put up with me "helping" him. I know I learned a lot from him.

When I moved in to my home, the first thing I did in the spring was make a veggie garden and start the beginnings of the flower borders. It was just a natural thing to do.
Remy

My mother had a large veggie garden when I was growing up. But I never was interested in gardening until I had been an adult for a while. The first house I moved into had several very ratty, sunburnt hostas by the front door. They were so ugly that I had to yank them out. Then I had to replace them with something. I planted several things, experiments that a beginner makes without really knowing anything. Yet, lo and behold, a few things grew which I took as an accomplishment. I also forgot half of what I planted and where so part of the fun was the mystery of guessing what the various sprouts were going to become. I've learned a lot since then. I will be moving to a different part of the country soon and can't wait to play in my new yard!

I was 21, I had two babies and couldn't afford much (to put it mildly)... however, I bought a 50 cent package of Marigold seeds and planted them, with my 2 year old, infront of my little apartment.

I'm now 43, have my own house, 2 acres of gardens and probally thousands invested in plants, shrubs, trees, etc.

The other day, my daughter asked me how I'm going to maintain all of that when I get old. I don't know, but it's not stopping me!

My beloved grandmother lived on a cotton farm on the MS Delta and did it all: milking cows, making her own butter, raising chickens and geese, collecting eggs, smoking hams...and of course, gardened food and flowers. Anything she did, I wanted to do. She told me years later that anytime we grandchildren came to visit, her hens would stop laying for a week or two. :)

Thomas Jefferson wanted us to always be a nation of farmers. Personally, I think it's in our genes, and not just Americans.

And Ken, you are so right. There is no better stress relief than digging furiously!

Flora, no worries-the cars will make fascinating planters!

My mother had a wonderful rock garden when I was little. I also remember bringing home flowers from Sunday School that were potted in cups for Mother's Day. One year we did ageratum and I thought they were beautiful! I also planted the eyes from a potato once and watched the plants grow almost a foot tall (at least that is how I remember it-lol). The next day, they were gone! My mother thought they were weeds and had pulled them out.

I do find that working outside is huge when it comes to shaking stress or a bad mood. Also great when I'm in a terrific mood. Now, if only these joints would flex more easily! We only have half an acre-I would love to have several acres, but probably wouldn't be able to take care of that much. I know it wouldn't come close to looking like Ken's place, so I am better off with my little bit of space.

Like many of you, my mother and grandmother were great gardeners, well-known amongst friends and family for being able to grow "anything". I have very early childhood memories of being keenly interested in anything that grows. Even as a teenager in the midst of hormones and dating, I bought a rose bush for myself and was so proud when it flourished and bloomed. Also like many of you, gardening is my therapy. The very minute I get into it, I find I'm singing or whistling to myself. It is SUCH a stress reliever...

My parents were English, so I came by it naturally (us Brits have a gardening gene preprogammed!). My dad took care of the edibles - BIG veggie garden plus berries and lots of fruit trees - and my mom tended the flowers. I received a small plot to call my own when I was about 5 and haven't stopped since. Even gardened when I was in college on tiny apartment balconies and later transformed every rental property I occupied before I finally bought a house and garden of my very own.

I have a design background and started early designing my own gardens and a few for friends and family. When my first career ended with the condensation of the banking industry in the early 90's, I went back to college and got a second degree in horticulture. I've been in the horticulture industry ever since - wholesale and retail nursery sales, my own design and consultation business and most recently as an horticultural speaker and instructor.

And of course I still continue to garden personally. Recently moved from a mature, large garden I created and tended for nearly 25 years to a tiny new garden in mostly shade. It's a lot of fun starting over......even at my rapidly advancing age :-)

I loved each and every one of these stories. It truly is magical to watch a tiny seed sprout and then become a plant and then become food (or a flower). When I was a child, my family lived outside of Pittsburgh and my father had a small vegetable garden of tomatoes and peppers. There were some old fashioned rose bushes that smelled wonderful. I watched my dad garden and asked some questions and one day I saw a baby tomato plant growing in the crack of a sidewalk. I carefully dug it out and brought it home and my dad was amazed that I had recognized the shape of the leaves. Then, there was a woman up the street who grew the most amazing fall mums. They smelled so good in the early mornings as I walked to school, I am ashamed to say that I used to swipe them from time to time. I just couldn't resist! Now I live on a pond in MetroWest Boston, and I have a 25 foot long perennial garden, a rose garden, and a bog garden on the pond. The perennial garden is on a main street and I get many passersby who admire and compliment me on it. A lot of people call me "the plant lady". Or when I describe where I live they say, "oh the house with all the flowers". I even get a kid or two who will swipe blossoms as they bike or walk by.... What goes around comes around. I comfort myself with the thought, there goes a gardener in the making!

Mom, dad and grandparents were all gardeners, and mom was a tender of houseplants, too.

When I was in high school we moved into a long ranch house with standard suburban yews-carved-into-rectangles growing all along the front. I was a busy teen and didn't pay much attention to what mom was up to out there. Then one day I came home on a visit from college and saw that she had worked a miracle--the yews were gone and the front of the house was graced by an amazing perennial border. It looked like the south of France.

That border is the standard I am working toward in my mind--the range of textures, colors, and sizes of plants, and how they all worked together. At the university where I worked, the horticulture department had a perennial border in the classic English style, and it was beyond lovely, but in my mind it's my mom's garden that I'm aiming for.

Where am I now? I am on my fifth garden, if I count the tiny perennial bed I started in my university days 20 years ago. Since then I've learned to read between the lines of the gardening catalogs, to stop watering things to death, and that I'd rather buy my tomatoes at the farmer's market and give that sunny spot to more zinnias!

My sister-in-law brought a bag of potato chips to our place back in 1975. In the bag was a pack of marigold seeds. I threw them in the ground and they grew. I thought, "wow this is easy". It might have been the last "easy" experience I've had with gardening, but I've been plugging away at it ever since, two houses later...

At age 3 I discovered the huge snowball bush in our yard----it was wonderful for playing wedding.
At age 8 I fell in love with peonies.
At 10 I was fascinated by my mom's forsythia.
At age 12 I noticed my Georgia grandma's huge zinnias.
At 14 I encountered columbine on a family vacation to Colorado.
At 16 I fell in love with my mom's peace rose.
When I married and lived in Germany I was enchanted by the pots of geraniums and pansies in all the little towns. And then there were the lupines (ahhhchooo!)
And then I started noticing flowers everywhere. Became interested in wildflowers. Had no space to garden.
TAh but then we moved to a 100 year old house in Alabama that had what was probably 100 year old azaleas, massive things and gorgeous, and a well begun flower bed. No telling how many heirloom plants I unwittingly dug up there! But that's where I began gardening...and now it makes my heart sing!!!
Leaving my gardens at that old house was SO hard! Not that I didn't actually take a heck of a lot of plants with me. But AH now we have a newer house and it was kind of a blank slate and what FUN to plant a whole new garden!
But what do you do when you have finally filled up all your space?!

My dad (a vegetable and nothing else gardener) made us work in the garden planting & hoeing ever since we were old enough to do so. I hated every second of it. It was our food. It was serious. It was hard work. No pretty flowers. Food only.

As we became teenagers & involved in school activities, we didn't have to help as much, but I still volunteered because it was comforting and part of the seasonal process. I still wondered about flowers & landscaping...but growing food was still the focus.

As an adult living in apartments until my early 30's, I didn't garden, but I dreamed about non-vegetable gardening, learned the plants, planned landscaping in my head...all from books and my mind. I never physically did it on my own...but gardening was a part of my life whether I did it or not.

At 41 yrs old and in my 2nd house with gardening in the dirt and not in my head, I am still a hard-core gardener. It's a part of my life and my soul.
gayle